NEWS**

5 Mile Fun Run in Heaton Park, 10.00am Sunday 1st April 2012

Manchester's Heaton Park was the venue for a five mile fun run organised by Manchester Metropolitan University BA (Hons) Sports Management students to raise awareness and funds for our work with the homeless. More than 70 people registered for the event and there was a good mix of experienced runners, who were using the course to get a personal best, club runners and walkers. The two-lap course took in the main sights of the park, which is one of the largest municipal parks in Europe and contains nine listed buildings.

Carol Price, Development Manager for Barnabus said, "We're so thankful for the enthusiasm and compassion shown by the team of students from Manchester Metropolitan University Business School. We were delighted to have been chosen for this fundraising event, particularly as we are a local Manchester Charity. Many people see the homeless in our city and don't know how best to help them, raising funds to support our work enables everyone to make a difference. The students were fantastic and put a great deal of planning, energy, thought and preparation into the run. Everyone had a lot of fun and it was an awesome event in every way. An impressive £398 was raised on the day. Thank you so much to everyone who supported us."

Alex Wright, Ashley Titley, Ellis Horton and Liam Boardman organised the event as part of their Event, Design and Development unit and learnt a lot from the experience as Alex explains. "We worked as a team and took lead responsibility for different areas of event management. I researched which charity we would support. Ellis did the risk assessment. Ashley was in charge of marketing and Liam drew up the route and worked with our event sponsor, Sweatshop, who provided prizes for each runner. We chose Sunday 1st April as the date because runners who were training for the Greater Manchester Marathon in April and the BUPA Great Manchester Run in May could include our event as part of their training schedule. Heaton Park was our preferred venue because it is a popular and accessible venue for runners and as Barnabus regularly run events here they were familiar with the park's layout and facilities and their volunteers staffed the course as race stewards."

If you would like to know about future running events, please send us an email and we will include you on our mailing list admin@barnabusmanchester.co.uk Alternatively keep an eye on our events pages for new and up and coming events.